Hospital From Hell
by Torchwood Cardiff
Summary: The Spooks Code 9 team are called to a small local hospital just outside of central London, when the NHS threatens to shut them down due to poor patient care. Warnings: Sexual assault and child abuse. Childbirth. Contains graphic depictions of medical exams. Strong Language. Thanks to tardis mole for helping me fix my mistakes.


A woman sat holding her child in her lap in the A&E waiting area. Waiting for their name to be called. Her three year old son had woken up with difficulty breathing that morning. She was nervous about this hospital due to what she had heard, but they had no choice. Her son needed help, and she hoped he would not die under the hospital's care. As a nurse called their name, she looked up, holding her son tightly.

* * *

Charlie looked through the latest mission. Going undercover at hospital seemed like a good idea. They could pass as Junior Doctors. He was nervous about being in a hospital again, he had worked in one briefly as part of work experience programme but had decided it wasn't for him and had switched over to Mathematics. Really, only Rob would be at home in the hospital and he was going to need to help the rest of the team get their skills up to par.

Rachel groaned as Rob took his place at the front of the room. As a policewoman she was a fully trained first responder and she doubted that Rob would be able to teach her anything in a few hours that the police service hadn't shown her in the intensive three-month long course that had been part of her training as a constable.

Vik sighed, He did not want to do this. He had training from St John's Ambulance but he wasn't at ease at all.

Kylie was a more at ease with it, she was in uni going for psychology at the time of the blast. She wondered how much they'd be doing with the patients on the unit.

"What do you think, Rachel?" She asked her blonde college and mate.

"I don't know...I've never had the chance to be in a hospital setting."

"We're done for if you can't relax," Rob sighed. "I don't like this anymore than you do."

"What if I do something wrong?" Rachel asked.

"You're spies for fuck's sake! If all the doctors had guns and would shoot you if you slipped up, do you think you could do this? It's no different from any other mission!" Rob crossed his arms and glared at them. "You've all done stuff much, much harder than this. Get over yourselves, you'll make mistakes and move on. It's not like whatever you do will affect your future as a doctor."

"I don't like being spewed on," Vik said.

"Do I look like I care, Vik?" Rob asked. "You've all bled on me before. Do I complain?"

"No," Vik said. "But I just don't want to be alone with anyone."

"Get used to it, Vik," Charlie muttered. "Not everyone is out to sue."

"Fine," Vik muttered. "Better not be any kids."

"There could be," Rob warned.

"Just fucking great."

Charlie passed out files. "Read these, tells us what we're up against."

"'There was an incident of a small child, around two years old, who had come in after a hit and run not far from the hospital entrance. She was in a terrible state, and the child was seizing. The child died in the car park an hour later with symptoms of Cushing's Triad, resulting from the head injury,'" Rob read from the file.

"Oh my gosh, they killed her!" Rachel said. "What's Cushing's Triad?"

"It happens in the event of a head injury, either by a blow to the head or the head hitting something hard and immovable or bleeding in the brain, causing pressure in the fluid around the brain and swelling of the brain itself. The patient presents with irregular breathing, slow heart rate and high blood pressure, not seizures. These three signs together are only apparent when the head injury is terminal. It can be helped by doing a lumbar puncture to relieve the pressure, however this does not always work, and depends on the nature of the injury. In bleeding in the brain, a lumbar puncture would have no effect." Rob explained to the stunned agents.

"What units are we on?" Kylie asked.

"Right," Charlie set out name badges. "They've been assigned to you. Rachel and Kylie, you'll be in maternity and paediatrics."

"All right," Rachel and Kylie grinned, as they got their stuff, and including the piles of text books.

"Seriously, you want us to learn this stuff by next week?" Kylie muttered, as she and Rachel headed over to the sofa.

Rob snorted. "Yeah." The ex-junior doctor leant against the wall smirking. "So where are we at, Charlie?" He asked.

"A&E," Charlie said. "A lot can happen there."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Vik said. "Patients' lives in our hands."

"Vik, you won't be any worse than the so-called doctors that killed them, and they really had to try with some of these cases." Rob said, shaking his head.

"Okay," Charlie said. "There's licences being put up, your names are being entered into the data base. Stethoscopes just got here," He pointed at the boxes that had just been delivered. "Ear pieces, and contacts with live video feed that will be sent back here, everything you do will be recorded."

"There are times where you may have to deal with patients alone, nurses may or may not be available," Rob added.

Rachel and Kylie nodded. They were busy reading on childbirth as Vik walked up.

"Want to get drinks? It'll be the last time for a while…ugh," Vik muttered. "Can't you take the porn somewhere else?"

Kylie snapped the book closed, pushing her hair back, and turning to face Vik. "First off, it's childbirth, bringing in a new life, not porn. Now that stuff that I saw on your computer, that's porn."

"Yeah, but I'm not doing that," Vik stabbed his finger at the baby in Rachel's book that was being born.

"You would if you had to," Kylie said.

"Nope. The kid can wait."

Charlie just shook his head, as Rob snorted.

"What?" Rachel asked. "It's a normal part of life. See it's actually in-"

"Where do you think you came from?" Kylie looked at Vik. "The Stork?"

"Yeah."

Rob shook his head and laughed. "Did you not read that section?"

"Nope, I skipped it."

"Vik childbirth isn't porn." Kylie said.

"Says the one who's going to be doing something she's never done before," Vik shot back.

"It's not that hard," Rachel said. "I've done it."

"Is she serious?"

"Yeah," Kylie replied. "And she's right."

"Right," Charlie said. "We're starting tomorrow morning."

"Ugh, mornings..." Vik muttered.

"Yeah, I know. See you at 0600."

"0600?" Vik asked, then muttered something under his breath.

"Yeah, this should be fun," Rachel said.

"Glad I'm not with you," Kylie smirked.

"Yeah, there goes my drinking, shit," Vik muttered as they finished and went back to their flat it was after 0100.

Charlie sighed, having no idea what they really getting into.


End file.
